Allure 7/1/12 - Review

[ajsdad]

Allure of the Seas – 7/1/12
Background
A little background information before we get this party started. Traveled on the Allure on 7/1, in our group were my parents in their 60s, Sister and her family, and Wife, 30s, self, and son, age 8. My immediate family had never sailed before, Sister and parents are old pros with about 10 cruises between them. I will try to provide enough details to be useful for others, while at the same time not being overly detailed to the point of losing the forest for the trees. I do want to point out that I am very opinionated, and sometimes come across as a prick. I think it is an adorable trait, others find it a character flaw. I tell you that in advance, since there may be some points of this review, where I may come across abrasive. But I am, who, I am, and I wanted to provided this disclaimer in advance. Also I haven’t taken a tremendous amount of time editing this, as such, if commas are in the wrong place, I apologize in advance. To see our photos check out: [url]http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/album.sfly?startIndex=16&sid=0AZt3LRi5atmLCOg&fid=760165517d343c4d[/url]
Travel -
We traveled from Kansas City on Friday evening, arriving in Ft Lauderdale at 1am. Both flights were packed to the max. Initial concern of whether we could find a cab at 130am was for not, plenty of cabs at that time, as two flights were landing. We had used priceline and got the Pier 66 Hyatt for 70 bucks. After getting the Pier, we went to tripadvisor and read the horror stories of how bad the Lanai rooms are. As such, when we got there, I tried the 20 dollar sandwich, which I had only tried before in Vegas. See frontdesktip.com for the details. The guy behind the desk, looked at my 20 and said what is that, I said that is for you, if you can find me a room in the tower. Guy took the 20, typed on his computer, and said, oh yes we have you in the tower. Put the twenty in his pocket and we were on our way to the 4th floor. The room was fine, nothing special, but clean and met our needs. The next day we met up with the rest of my family at the Marriott Harbor, which was in walking distance of the Hyatt. Holy cow was the Marriott nice. Or better stated, the grounds were nice. I thought our room and certainly our bathroom was hands down nicer than theirs; however, you couldn’t beat their view. The Marriott made Ft Lauderdale as a vacation destination in its own right, on my radar screen for future reference. Sat night we ate at Coconuts, it was a nice spot, with pretty good food. We then grabbed a cab to hit Target, as we learned earlier that day our water camera had died, cab was 20 bucks each way, which was not really in the budget, but we couldn’t go without the camera. The next day, we awoke, took the elevator up to the top of the Hyatt and caught our first glimpse of the Allure, wow was she beautiful.
Sunday -
After a light snack of Duncan Donuts, that was available at the Hess gas station across the street we were on our way to the boat. Paid 7 bucks a person for a van, and within 20 minutes or so we were at the pier. Check in was a breeze, we were up to the boarding area within 15 minutes. We were not given any WOW cards however. We then made our way across the gangway and onto the boat. To be honest, I was not overwhelmed like others have reported. I thought it was nice, but I wasn’t overwhelmed with the ship at first glance. In my mind I was thinking it was going to wow me like the Belliago or Wynn did when I walked in, don’t get me wrong, it was very very nice, but I wasn’t awe inspired. We like almost everyone else made our way to central park and had myself the first of many roast beef sandwiches. They are as good as others have mentioned. Rooms were available right at 1pm. I was very impressed with the rooms, as I was expecting a shoe box. We had a balcony on the 8th floor, mid ship. Room met our needs, and we enjoyed having a balcony for the cruise, as it was just awesome to see the ports as we approached. After getting settled in, I made a phone call to our room attendant who took down the dividers between the three rooms. We then went up to the pool deck to watch the sail away. It was neat to see the Coast Guard patrolling the boat and wishing us a good voyage. After changing into our bathing suits we enjoyed an hour or so swimming and then got ready for dinner. We ate in the MDR for all dinners, 6pm (in the future, I would never eat early again, you were just so rushed after shore excursions, and you ended up having an hour or so dead time before the night on the ship really began) and had Albert ,from the Philippines as our waiter. We were at a table by ourselves and had outstanding service. As a whole our table thought the food was good, not great, but good. I think our primary complaint was the lack of choices. Food was plentiful and Albert would bring us much as we wanted to eat, and was willing to make recommendations, including what not to order, which was nice. That night we had reservations for Ocean Aria. The show was good, and I was very impressed with the Divers, later in the trip I went to the behind the scenes, and learned that our show was down a few divers due to injuries, however the show went off without a hitch, and you couldn’t tell. We hit the piano bar for a few drinks, and was dreaming after about 5 minutes of my head hitting the pillow. The bed was very comfortable with little noise from above or below.
Hope to add more tomorrow. Day at Sea - Swimming, Drinking, Love Connection Game ---

[Jman1118]

Can not wait to hear your review. I was on that cruise also.

[ajsdad]

A quick note from the previous report:
Muster Drill – Don’t get me wrong, I understand the need for the drill. In light of the Costa even more so than ever, However, I thought it was a waste of time to in essence show me a video that explained where I needed to go in the event of an emergency. The video explained that I needed to go to the very place I was sitting, keep in mind, I was able to make it to without them showing me the video. Why not show me where the life preservers are, or in the event I can’t make it to my station, since the ship was listing or whatever the case might be, where I go. All I was thinking this whole time was, did I really think the captain in any situation would order an abandon ship. The thing cost 1.2 Billion to build.

[janetz]

[SIZE=3][COLOR=purple]Great so far..keep it coming. Pictures are great. Your son is adorable. :)[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[fossilcreekranch]

I was also on this cruise, but unlike you, I ate most of my meals in the windjammer. Never went to the MDR.